


d-i-v-o-r-c-e

by gothyringwald



Series: state of the heart (harringrove tumblr fic) [11]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Developing Friendships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Light Angst, M/M, Other: See Story Notes, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-08-29 19:04:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16749841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gothyringwald/pseuds/gothyringwald
Summary: Steve's parents are getting a divorce. Billy understands.





	d-i-v-o-r-c-e

**Author's Note:**

> Here's something I wrote up at the end of August and wasn't sure about posting. Thanks again to socknonny for reading it over/cheerleading! :)
> 
> **Just a note that there is a brief discussion/reference to alcoholism as well as abuse of prescription drugs (I couldn't find a tag for that one) but neither relate to Steve or Billy themselves**

Steve slams his locker shut and rests his forehead against the cool metal, books clutched in one hand. He breathes in, then out, slowly. Lets his shoulders slump, his eyes drift closed, trying to collect himself before class. He startles when a soft voice says, 'Hey.'

Steve opens his eyes and turns around. Jonathan is standing about a foot away, clutching the strap of his satchel.

'Hi,' Steve says, feeling a little foolish.

Jonathan seems to be bracing himself for something as he sucks in a deep breath. 'Nancy told me about your parents. About the divorce,' he finally says. 'I'm, uh, I'm sorry.'

'Oh,' Steve says. He shifts his weight. 'Thanks.'

Jonathan nods. 'If you wanna talk about it I'm...here.' 

It sounds like a question and Steve almost wants to laugh. But he doesn't, just claps Jonathan on the shoulder and says, 'Thanks, man,' while his stomach is twisting into knots.

Jonathan ducks his head. 'It's OK. I have class. I'll see you later,' he says and then he walks off, leaving Steve bewildered. He shakes his head and looks up, only to see Billy Hargrove staring at him. Steve arches his brow but Billy doesn't look away. 

A wave of irritation rises up in Steve so he rolls his eyes and makes his way to class, ignoring the way Billy's gaze makes his skin tingle, his hairs stand on end. 

Steve sets his books down on his desk and thinks about Jonathan's offer to lend a sympathetic ear. It was well-intentioned, Steve is sure—the Byers are one of the only other few families in Hawkins to have gone through a divorce—but Steve knows he won't want to talk about it. Not with Jonathan. He sighs, settling back in his seat, and opens his book moments before the teacher walks in.

__

The locker room is mostly empty when Steve finishes getting dressed, hair still damp from showering. Billy is lingering, seeming like he's waiting for something or someone. Steve tries to ignore him but when the other boys leave, and Billy and Steve are alone, he kicks Steve's foot and says, 'Heard your parents are getting divorced.'

Steve's stomach drops and he feels hot all over. 'Yeah, they are. Thanks for mentioning it,' he snaps. 'My grandma died when I was eight and last year Nancy Wheeler broke my heart. Wanna talk about either of those happy events, too?'

Billy blinks at him and then he scowls. 'Fuck, I was just trying to…' He huffs, seems frustrated as he runs a hand over his face. 'Whatever. I just wanted to say that I get it. But fuck you.' He stalks away and Steve is left staring at the empty space where Billy had been standing.

It's a few minutes before Billy's words sink in. When they do, Steve feels like an asshole. 

'Well, shit,' he says and picks up his bag, making for the parking lot. He gets in his car but he doesn't drive home.

__

Steve isn't surprised to see Billy's Camaro as he pulls up to the quarry. It's not the first time they've run into each other out here. They've shared cigarettes and cheap beer and, if not friendship, a grudging companionship. So Steve knows he shouldn't have thought the worst in the locker room, when Billy had mentioned his parents' divorce. But it's still raw, still hurts keenly, and so he had lashed out.

Steve cuts the ignition and gets out of his car. 'Hey,' he says, as he approaches. Billy doesn't turn around. 'I was a jerk in the locker room. Sorry.'

Billy shrugs. 

'I didn't think. I forgot about your parents,' Steve says. He doesn't know much about Billy's life in California, but he does know his mom and dad divorced a few years ago. He should have remembered.

'It's fine,' Billy says. 

'OK,' Steve says. 'It's still...new, you know? Weird.'

'I get it. That's what I was trying to say.' Billy pauses, draws in a breath. 'It's shitty.'

'Yeah.' Steve lets out a long breath. The hum of music from the Camaro's stereo fills the silence between them. 'It's not like we were the Brady Bunch, all happy and shit. But they're both meant to be there. And now they won't be.' It's the first time Steve has said that out loud, and something shifts inside him as the words leave his mouth. 

'I know.' Billy lights up a cigarette and offers it to Steve then lights another for himself. 'My mom wasn't...the best, or whatever. But when she left it sucked.'

Steve inhales, warm smoke filling his lungs, the first hit of nicotine buzzing pleasantly through him. 'How'd you deal with it?'

Billy looks at him sidelong. 'I didn't.'

Steve huffs a laugh, even though it's not funny. He crosses one ankle over the other. He's not sure he should push this, whatever this is, between them but he asks, 'Why'd your parents split?'

Something flashes over Billy's face and Steve thinks there's a story there, one Billy probably won't share any time soon. 'Ah, just…fought a lot. Screaming matches, throwing stuff.' Billy digs the toe of his boot into the dirt. 'Yours?'

'My mom said dad's fucking his secretary.'

'Is he?'

Steve bites his lip. 'Probably.'

Billy gives a sympathetic shrug and draws on his cigarette. 'It was weird when my mom left.'

'Weird is one word for it,' Steve says, when Billy doesn't add anything else.

Billy's lips quirk. He bites his thumbnail and taps his foot. 'She was always drunk by the end but until then I was kinda normal, you know? We were normal.' Billy blows smoke out of his nose. 'On the outside at least.'

'I get it,' Steve says, echoing Billy's own words. He hasn't felt normal in a while but he gets it. You have a mom and a dad and you all live together, like you're meant to. And then it all changes. 'I can't imagine you've ever been normal, though.'

Billy's eyes flash and he tenses but he seems to force himself to loosen. He snorts. 'Fuck off.'

Steve ducks his head. 'So your mom an alcoholic?' Billy does look ready to punch Steve then, so Steve quickly adds, 'My mom doesn't drink much. But she has pills. They're prescribed. But she's always somewhere else these days.' His stomach churns.

Billy relaxes again. 'My mom nearly burnt the house down once,' he says. 'Or I'd be doing my homework, or whatever, and she'd want me to dance with her. She cried if I didn't.' Billy's almost smiling but it's a sad, small thing.

Steve is surprised at the candour of Billy's words—it seems so unlike him—but it makes Steve want to spill his guts, too. 'My mom barely notices I'm there. Neither of them do. They look at me like _who are you and what are you doing here?_ ' Steve sighs. 'Unless I've done something to embarrass my dad. Then he notices I'm there.'

Billy makes a noise of acknowledgement. 'I wish my dad didn't notice me, some days.'

Steve winces. He doesn't know much about Billy's dad but he knows that he's more than just a hard-ass. Steve's dad lectures him about grades or money or responsibility in a way that fills Steve with shame, but from what he's heard, Neil Hargrove is far worse. 'Sorry,' Steve says.

'Don't,' Billy says, 'that's not what this is about.'

Steve nods. 'Where's your mom now?' 

'Last I heard she got sober,' Billy says, 'and a new family. Just like my dad.'

Steve hums. He wonders if his parents will find new families, too, and feels sick. 'My dad's moving out. Going to live in the apartment he has in Chicago for business trips.' He crushes his cigarette beneath the toe of his shoe. 'It's just gonna be me and my mom and, I mean, it's like that when dad goes away, if mom doesn't go with him. But I don't know how to do it when he's not coming back.' He looks helplessly at Billy, like somehow he'll know what Steve should do, even if by his own admission he's never dealt with his parents' divorce.

Billy nods. 'Yeah, I know. My mom was hopeless in a lot of ways but she was this buffer between me and my dad. She balanced everything.'

'Yes,' Steve says and the last bit of loneliness he's been holding melts away, just for a moment, because Billy gets it. It's different, for both of them, but the same, too.

Silence settles but it's not like the empty silence at home, or the charged silences he's experienced with Billy before. It's a silence of understanding. 

A breeze blows past and Steve shivers, shifts his weight so, even though he's still not touching Billy, he can feel the warmth of him. 'Did you ever feel guilty?' he asks, voice almost a whisper. 'Like it was your fault?'

Billy takes a while to answer. When he does, Steve thinks he says, 'It was,' but his voice is so quiet he can't be sure. Billy clears his throat and says, 'Yeah.' He takes out another cigarette, lights it, and says, 'It's not though.' He looks at Steve and, louder, repeats, 'It's not,' and Steve thinks that he might be trying to convince himself more than he's telling Steve.

'Yeah,' Steve says, breath catching. He crosses his arms. 'Thanks.'

'For what?'

'Just...this.'

'Don't sweat it,' Billy says.

The sun is sinking, turning the blue sky to a blaze of pink and orange. Steve glances at Billy. His eyes are closed, the fading sunlight catching on his lashes. Steve swallows. Their conversation seems to be over but he doesn't want to go home just yet, so he says, 'Hey, uh, you hungry?'

'Always,' Billy says and Steve's stomach flips, 'but I have to go.'

'Oh. That's cool.'

Billy turns, hesitates a moment, then turns back. 'Maybe next time?'

Steve bites his lip and nods. 'Yeah. Next time.' He swipes Billy's dwindling cigarette, taking a drag, then crushing it. 

Billy raises a brow, the corner of his mouth ticking up. 'Later, Harrington.'

'See you at school,' Steve says, and Billy waves, not turning around.

As Steve watches Billy get in his car and pull away, he feels lighter than he has since his parents told him about the divorce. There's almost a sense of normalcy. Steve slides into his own car, turning the ignition, and pulls onto the road back to his house. It's weird that Billy Hargrove could make him feel normal, he thinks, but what's weirder is that, to some unnameable part of Steve, it makes perfect sense.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I don't know why I sat on this one so long. But it's up now! :) I like the idea of them bonding over this kind of thing?
> 
> Feel free to come find me on tumblr [@gothyringwald](http://gothyringwald.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
